People
Giulia Achilli - Producer
Giulia is an Italian independent producer currently based in Rome.
She graduated from Art School in Milan, and subsequently took a post-degree in History of Cinema.
 |
While completing her cinema studies, she helped setting up two production companies in Rome and Milan, functioning as a scripts selector and development executive. She later line produced several TV Commercials for La Dolce Vita Films (Rome), mainly on behalf of European, American and Japanese Companies, and that same year, she was assistant to Dutch photographer Rohn Meijer. Later, she teamed up with two emergent directors in Milan and together they produced a series of “genre” (mainly science-fiction) short and medium length films, among which the International prize-winning “E:D:E:N” (winner “Best Artistic Contribution”, Arcipelago Int’l Film Festival, Rome; “Best Foreign Film”, Festival of Fantastic Films, Manchester-UK) and “The Silver Rope”, in collaboration with Sky Italia (New York Independent Film&Video Festival, Utopiales France). |
In the meantime Giulia has also worked in advertising, as a directors’ and talents’ scout, for Milan based Movie Magic Co. first and then on a freelance basis (Milan-Rome).
All along Giulia has been writing for several Milan magazines, reviewing theatre plays, music concerts and art exhibitions.
She later took charge of the Executive Production of the film “Onde” (“Waves”, Italy 2004) by director Francesco Fei. The film has been competing at major film festivals, including Rotterdam Int’l Film Festival, San Francisco Int’l Film Festival, Karlovy Vary and Rio De Janeiro International Film festivals. It was theatrically released in Italy in May 2006.
In 2006 she moved to Bombay, eager to gain the necessary insight into one of the world’s largest and most prolific markets.
In 2007/2008 she produced, together with Bandra West Films, her first Hindi film, “Barah Aana”, directed by Raja Menon and starring Naseeruddin Shah, Vijay Raaz, Arjun Mathur, Tannishta Chatterjee and Italian actress Violante Placido. The film was released in the country in March 2009 (120 prints) and has premiered Internationally at Chicago International Film Festival and later in New York in October/November 2009.
From May 2009, Giulia has been creative consultant for Cinema Capital, an Indian Film Fund eager to start investments on International films. Cannes Film Festival 2009 was the first step to start selecting and outsourcing projects for the Fund.
She most recently produced “Inshallah, football!”, a documentary feature on Kashmir and Football directed by Oscar nominated Ashvin Kumar. The film premiered at Pusan Film Festival in October 2010, and got a jury special mention at Dubai Film Festival later the same year; it’s represented Internationally by Smiley Film- New Zeland, and soon competing at Chicago Int’l Film Festival, Asiatica Film Mediale (Rome), Dok Leipzig (Germany).
Rael Jones - Music Composer
Rael Jones is a Composer for Film and TV, based in London. He was recently the Music Editor on the Inbetweeners movie, which has only been out for a few weeks in the UK but is already the 3rd highest box office of the year after King's Speech and Harry Potter.
About his experience of working with Ashvin, he says the two films they worked on were very different.
|
“As composer on ‘Dazed in Doon’, Ashvin pushed for me to write in a seriously wide range of genres. At one extreme, there are heavy post rock guitars, at the other gentle bamboo flutes playing the school's anthem. I really enjoyed collaborating with singer Verdang Dharashive, whose Indian vocal improvisations I weaved around more western psychedelic orchestration to compliment the liberated, artist-rebel feel of the lead character. For ‘The Forest’, I spent 4 months in India, and when I wasn't suffering from incredible gastrointestinal problems, I was editing dialogue and creating sound effects. My best memory is meeting up with the Bedi brothers who shot all the nature footage and hearing all of these amazing nature sounds that they'd recorded in the Indian jungle. We used these to set the tone in the jungle scenes, placing animal alarm calls around the cinema to heighten the sense of there being a dangerous predator nearby, but out of sight.” |
 |
Recently, Rael has been touring and engaging in TV appearances as a guitarist with GUILLEMOTS front man FYFE DANGERFIELD.
He has also appeared on BBC One's JUNIOR APPRENTICE, as a composer working with one of the finalists. Other recent credits include work on BBC One's SHERLOCK, and feature films WILD TARGET, WILD CHILD, QUANTUM OF SOLACE and STATE OF PLAY.
Rael has a very strong musical background, rooted in classical training from an early age. His writing stems from improvisation and live performance, and he is a highly accomplished player of many instruments; from Piano, Guitars and Drums to quirkier items like Autoharp and Musical Saw.
Technically adept and flexible, he has adopted many roles on feature films such as Music Editing, Music Producer, Programming, Sound Design and Dialogue Editing. He graduated from the Tonmeister Course with First Class Honours, winning both available prizes for Composition.
Neil Sadwelkar - Technical Advisor
 |
Neil has a background of managing high tech video and film facilities spread over Mumbai and other cities. And these days he is trying his best to use this knowledge to independently make a living out of helping people make better movies. He has a Masters degree in Physics and Electronics, and tries to impart scientific knowledge and temperament to film and video post-production. Doesn't always work. In the past decade or so, Neil has been a source of technical support to young editors and film-makers, demystifying the ever increasing complexity of digital technology in movie-making so that it makes sense. He is happy being considered as the 'go to guy' to those who struggle to come to terms with the jargon that pervades the organic craft of putting images and sounds on a screen. |
In his spare time, Neil maintains a blog, a web site on film and video post, and hosts forums on editing and disk storage. He also conducts workshops at the FTII, and WWI - premier film schools in India. And writes for technical publications whenever they ask him to, and insist on paying. With whatever time is spare after all this, he struggles to write flowery prose about himself like the stuff you're reading now.
Contact Neil if you'd like to spend some money finding answers to tricky digital questions. Or, don't contact him, and spend even more money finding out the answers by yourself. And then contact him eventually to fix the mess.
You can get to him on neil at sadwelkar dot com, or check out his blog at
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com [2], or his web site
If you're really desperate call him on +91982 029 5605.
But not answering calls makes Neil feel important, so please SMS or mail him first.
Roland Heap - Sound recordist and designer
Roland is a sound recordist, designer and re-recording mixer working primarily in feature films. After graduating in Music and Sound Recording from the University of Surrey’s leading Tonmeister course, Roland spent a period working as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road Studios in London. His score-reading abilities led him to work primarily on film scores, including those for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Roland left the studios to peruse his passion for film sound, and worked as a freelancer on a variety of independent features and productions such as the Ashvin Kumar's Oscar nominated Little Terrorist and The Forest.
In 2008 he founded Sound Disposition in London which has already recorded and mixed audio for over 15 feature films, for distribution by companies including Optimum, Momentum and Lionsgate and including Odem which was nominated for a Golden Bear award in Berlin earlier this year. He has also been known to occasionally work on ITV’s the X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, and has recorded the scores for various TV and radio dramas for the BBC.
Roland is also a guest lecturer in sound at the Raindance Film School.
"I've worked with Ashvin now on four films, from his short 'Little Terrorist', through 'The Forest', then to Kashmir for 'Inshallah Football' and most recently 'Dazed in Doon'.
Our first meeting - Little Terrorist - was in many ways an awakening for me. I'd only just completed university, and was looking for adventure, and it came in the form of a posting looking for a sound person for a short film being shot in India. No pay, and we had to sort our own airfare, but it was exactly what I was looking for. I'd never before travelled beyond Europe. The adventures we had on that trip are well documented in the making-of, notable highlights being the tent burning with all the rushes, the massive excess baggage costs, the crowds of people who gathered (seemingly from nowhere) as soon as we began shooting and the cow-trampled microphone. The unexpected success of the film was fantastic and helped lead to our next adventure.
The Forest was a life-changing experience, and led to me spending nearly a year in India, first completing the location recording, then the entire post-production from both Delhi and Mumbai, and finally getting stuck in the country due to visa problems (a story I will only recount over a stiff drink). Using a mixture of local facilities, improvised editing rigs, and fantastically talented crew (international and local), we managed to put together a film which I still consider to be one of the finest I've worked on.
Shooting 'Inshallah Football' was another phenomenal experience; both deeply moving and thrilling in equal measures. I was humbled by the generosity and hospitality of all those we met. To be able to visit and immerse oneself in such a beautiful and complex country as Kashmir is was a privilege, and I'm proud of the film that became of it."
